July 6, 2005
View Comments | Post CommentOpen wi-fi points not really so open?
Another impressive blunder for Tampa! The St Pete Times reports on a man arrested for using open wireless access point. He has admitted to using the connection, and so they're pinning him with "Unauthorized access to a computer network," a third degree felony. That's the same crime someone would get charged with for hacking into a CIA database. All for sitting outside someone's house in a van, surfing the web.
This is a point of law about which I am not ambivalent. This should not be a crime at all. Yes, he wasn't "authorized" to access that network. But neither do you have authorization to access my computer, and yet you are doing it right now to read this blog. The internet is based on an assumption of openness: if something is available on a computer somewhere, then people can access it unless you take steps to prevent their doing so. If we got rid of this principle, you would have to write by snail mail to every website owner in order to obtain permission to access his site before doing so. This principle of openness has been tested in court before where courts said people could not be prosecuted or called hackers merely for typing a web address into their browser and seeing the content at the address, even if the content owners never linked to it. Here's another article about why this must be the case, and this is a great comment on this specific case.
But this principle also applies to open access points. If someone purchases a wireless router and installs it without securing it with a password, it is assumed that it is open to anyone who wants to use it, as long as they are within its range. Indeed, many people intentionally leave their access points open for others' use. There were many privately owned access points at Vanderbilt, for instance, open to others' use.
Perhaps this guy in this case was doing something wrong. Who knows? It would be truly regrettable if he, for instance, downloaded child porn, which was then traced back to homeowner's computer address. But these are the risks one takes. Whether one has a land line or wireless, dedicated, intelligent hackers can break into your computer at any time and do what they want with your connection. This guy is being hung out to dry because the police are not saavy enough.
The homeowner doesn't lose anything, not if you don't take up an unreasonable amount of bandwidth. I can see an argument that the ISP is losing money, but they make their 1 Mbps line to their subscribers for the subscribers use, and although terms of use prohibit it, the connection is de facto the subscribers to do with what he wishes. If he wants to make it open and let others use it, it should be his right. In this case, the owner did just that, though unintentionally.
No is really hurt. No crime has been committed. Free Benjamin Smith III!
Posted at July 6, 2005 7:21 AM | Comments (2)
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But, Cohen went on to ask, "Do you cheat the service provider?" Internet companies say yes.
*cough bullshit! cough*
So if I follow the logic here, someone might use it to download kiddie porn and to hack other computers, so it should probably be illegal. On a related note, I hear that there's work to make the Internet illegal.
Posted by: Daniel at July 6, 2005 12:40 PM
I agree that no real crime has been committed. It should be the responsibility of the owner of the network to secure his or her own network. Once someone intentionally circumvents something or goes out of their way to to use your network when youve made a good faith effort to stop them, then I think theyve committed a crime. A sign that says "No Bandwidth Trespassing" would be funny. Otherwise, youre just using something that has been made available to you out of ignorance.
Posted by: Chris at July 6, 2005 2:51 PM
